The Tube 150th Anniversary: 10 Surprising London Underground Facts

The London Underground is 150 years young this week and you can bet in that time it has accrued its fair share of odd tales and weird rumours.

The Huffington Post UK has gathered 10 of the very best Tube-related tales to regale you with.

From unexpected wildlife, adverse health effects and a surprising centuries-old danger, you'll definitely learn something new to tell your fellow commuters on the way home.

If it doesn't all together put you off, that is..

Also on The Huffington Post

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10 Strange Facts About The Tube

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A 40-minute tube journey is said to be the equivalent of smoking two cigarettes.

In central London, the distance between two stops is never more than a 10-minute stroll.
GET OUT AND WALK!

Aldgate station hides a dark and disturbing secret underneath.
The site sits atop a massive pit containing 1000 victims of the 1665 bubonic plague.

When the Circle line was opened in 1884, The Times described it as “a form of mild torture which no person would undergo if he could conveniently help it”.
Nothing much has changed then?

It is estimated that half a million furry little rodents live in the Underground system.

Although comic capers would have you believe the banana is the ultimate slippery threat, it is in fact the humble green grape which causes the most accidents on the Tube.

Mosquitoes inhabiting the Underground system have evolved into an entirely separate species to their ground-level living relatives.
They have grown fond of rats, mice and also have a penchant for human blood.
Biologists named them Culex pipiens molestus.

Due to an alarming rise in the number of passengers jumping in the path of trains, 'suicide pits' were introduced in 1926.
50 people kill themselves on average every year on the Tube.
The most common suicide time is 11am.

During the Blitz in 1940 many tube stations were used as air raid shelters.
Two miles of the Central Line were even converted into a giant aircraft factory, something which was an official state secret until the 1980s.

Harry Potter's headmaster at Hogwarts, Professor Albert Dumbledore, has a scar in the shape of the tube map on his left knee.
No-one has any idea how or why though.